Bitcoin mines have been a source of controversy across the region, with people organizing to keep them out of their neighborhoods. But what exactly is bitcoin? How does one mine it? And why is it so loud?

Bitcoin mining is an extremely complicated topic. It’s not at all like mining coal.

That’s because Bitcoin is not a physical object. It only exists in the digital world.

Bitcoin is the name of one of the earliest and most popular cryptocurrencies.

It started on an idea: what if you could exchange money without going through a bank? Bitcoin instead uses a network of computers.

“All of the systems are decentralized, so there is not one person or one government or one entity that owns and oversees all of them,” explained technologist Luke Thompson, co-founder of The Operations Guide.

But without a central bank there has to be a way to prevent fraud and verify each new block of transactions.

“It’s a race because the person who’s able to verify the block the fastest will get paid. They’re called miners because they’re paid in newly-minted Bitcoins,” King University economics professor Alexander Brumlik said.

It’s based on a technique known as cryptographic hashing.

Hashes are used as a sort of verification code. The math involved is so complicated that the only way to find the right code is to try every number — trillions of attempts.

Get the right answer first, and you get about three Bitcoin, the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“This morning, it was at $105,000 per Bitcoin,” Brumlik said.

But, to be first, it takes immense computing power.

“Inside of modern Bitcoin mines in a commercial capacity, we’re looking at server racks, so rows and rows of thousands of individual machines, really as many as you can fit in there,” Thompson said.

Brumlik explained, “The issue is that these mining centers consume huge amounts, vast amounts of electricity, into the megawatts, and when you’re consuming that much power, you’re also producing a lot of heat.”

If you have a computer at home or the office, it has at least one fan to keep it cool. You’ve likely never noticed the noise.

“How many fans are we thinking running at one time in one mine?” News 5’s Caleb Perhne asked Thompson.

“It can definitely vary size by size, easily hundreds of thousands of fans,” Thompson replied.

The result is a roar 24-hours a day at a mine in Limestone.

There are ways of mitigating the noise, but this is a big reason why the topic of new Bitcoin mines brings up such a fight.